After I finished school, I started NCS The Challenge. It is a government funded program for teenagers around the age of 15-17. It lasts for 3 weeks during the summer holiday and the weekends of September.
In the first week, it was a personal challenge and mine was based in Arthog, North Wales. I was in one of the best wave as I had the chance to do so much. I got to experience lots of activities that I have never done before such as gouge walking, kayaking, abseiling, rock climbing, camping, hiking with 'heavy backpacks and walking across a 25 feet quarry with ropes/ wobbly ladders and leap of faith. During the evening, we also had some free time to bond with our wave and group.
However, getting to Wales was rather difficult! We were suppose to leave at 12pm on the first day but the coach broke down when we were about to leave Kingston so the coach went back to the company to fix it. The staff said it will take around an hour but it actually took the coach 5 hours to come back. They say it will take us around 6 hours to get there but we ended up getting there at 2am. During the coach journey, it broke down once again when we were around 10 mins away from our destination. It was a girl called Humaria's birthday so when the clock hit 12am we sang Happy Birthday. As soon as we finished singing, there was a loud bang and it sounded like we crashed into something. The next thing you know, black smoke started coming out from the back of the coach and it stank quite badly so the staff got everyone to evacuate. It was pitch black outside and we are in the middle of the woods. It was like we jinxed this because just around 30 mins before the coach broke down again we were saying how it would have been very scary to step outside of the coach at this time in a pitch black forest like place. When everyone was screaming and panicking, the owner of the house that all of us were standing by came out and told us to be silent or else he will come out again with a gun. The staff called up the place and they arranged mini buses to take all of us to our destination. Within about 20 mins, a few mini buses came and most of the group was gone. As usual when it comes to Edwards' turn it took another 20-30 mins or so before we could get on a minibus. (We are known to be the last group in everything) Despite this scary yet memorable experience, we managed to see many pretty stars in the night sky. It was nothing that I have ever seen before. To round off, we got to Arthog at 2am and still had dinner. They gave us jacket potato for dinner and it was disgusting. The jacket potato was mushy/cold and the salad just didn't taste right either. Luckily the food wasn't as bad throughout the whole stay. Just our first midnight dinner we had there.
 |
| When we were finally on the coach. |
 |
| The sleepyhead(s) |
 |
| View when half way up |
 |
| The hike up to the rocks |
 |
| Great view! |
 |
| The rocks we climbed up looked a bit like this |
 |
| Rock Climbing & Abseiling |
 |
| View when camping |
 |
| The sunset when camping was unforgettable! Miss this =( |
 |
| View from camping |
 |
| Team Edwards =) |
 |
| Attempting a big human pyramid |
 |
| With the losers =P |
 |
| The group of friends from the whole wave |
 |
| Cos he was strong enough to carry 2 girls on his shoulders |
 |
| A meet up in Richmond Park on the weekends after the first week |
 |
| Other people from another wave also joined. Of course we were still the best wave =P |
In the second week, it was a group challenge. You get to stay at a university and experience the university life. I stayed at Kingston University, Kingston Hill Campus. To be honest, the accommodation wasn't very good and their way of designing the place was pretty stupid. They did not think to have a window for the kitchen and as a result it was boiling and stuffy in there. For their showers, the water was either very hot or very cold so no one could have a pleasant shower. Their shower curtain also had tiny holes at the top so after you showered, you will find yourself stepping on a puddle of water when you get out. You would think that you can soak up the puddle of water with the towel they provided but the next thing you know the towel is waterproof and does not soak up water. WHO PLANNED THIS PLACE?
Anyway, as I was in Team Edwards, we were chosen to do media. It wasn't my first choice but I usually study media so it did not affect me. We had the chance to go to a old people's home called Abbeyfield House. All the elderly there have dementia; some may be more serious than others. We have to interview some of them and create a promotional video of the place. My group and I interviewed a guy called Douglas and he was a graphic designer back in the days. He used to work for ITV and published a book called "Sculptures in Bristol". While filming, there was a old lady that kept telling us to get out of her house and said she doesn't want to be on the papers. It was so sad to see this because I believe she thinks where she's living is her house and she still thinks that it is back in the days when it was dangerous to have people round your house during wars, especially we are filming something and had cameras with us.
During editing, we had lots of technically difficulties such as we can't export our video as the way we imported the videos weren't right and the files are corrupted, which we still didn't manage to sort out in the end. Then we also had the wrong cable to connect the laptop to the projector so it was impossible to view the videos at the showcase and the staff had to go out to Maplin to buy a new one. We also didn't have enough time to edit the whole thing in perfection so at the showcase some videos were still incomplete. IT WAS JUST A MESS. However, at the showcase everything worked out and my video was some what finished and I was happy.
 |
| Tried out henna during our free time |
 |
| Wave games time |
 |
| #Selfie =) |
In the third week, it was the real challenge. We had to plan what we are going to do for our September weekends to fund-raise for our given charity #SwingTheVote. I personally think this week was the worst; it was so stressful and wasn't fun at all. We were given a campaign instead of a charity because apparently the charity we originally had didn't call back to confirm so they have to give us a different one on the day and because of that we did not go to see our community partner like all the other groups did. We decided to fund-raise for Abbeyfield instead because that is something which is close to our hearts and the money will be more useful as we don't exactly know where the money is going towards for our given charity #SwingTheVote. After we planned our events on the second day, we have to come up with a pitch to introduce to 'important people' about what our activities like they do on Dragons Den to get an extra £100 for our charities. On the third day, we went to a card printing factory/office to pitch our charity days to them. Out of all the groups, we had the worst practise partner since they get to go to law firms, fire station, hospitals and others. On our final day, those 'important people' they mentioned was our local MP Zac Goldsmith, some director or someone from Metro Bank and someone to do with Body Language. Our pitch went well, but unfortunately we lost because they thought our charities did not work well together because of the different age groups therefore the group with a good charity (BornTooSoon) won. I just find that irritating because we did not choose our charity ourselves and apparently what we were going to have was a good charity so we could have won.
 |
| Ma Chinks <3 |
 |
| The oriental family & a few scrapes |
 |
| Team Edwards =D |
 |
| My 'Half' Bro & Sis |
 |
| NCS Party |
 |
| NCS Party |
 |
| After NCS Party (Own Party) |
Anyway apart from the fun and the frustration, I had an amazing time with 60 other teenagers around my age. It was definitely a one off experience. I would truly recommend this to anyone who haven't done it. I got very close with most people from my wave. We have only met each other for 3 weeks but it felt like I've knew them for years! Especially my group TEAM EDWARDS! We are like a big family! We also won the best team for the first week (not to forget this). =P I hope to meet up and talk to them in the future and stay friends for life.
I thank The Challenge for this awesome experience!
0 comments:
Post a Comment